Friday, December 27, 2013

The Nativity Icon in the Christmas Octave (Continued)

SOMEONE WROTE AND WISELY ASKED: Why in the Nativity Icon is the Mother of God looking away from her Son, in Western images she is fixed on him? It does seem curious doesn't it? But follow the line of her gaze. She is looking at the shepherds. And the shepherds are called the ANAWIM.

The anawim are those who in every time and culture are those who live on the margins, who have been pushed to the edge, the ones who are forgotten by the world. For the shepherds we might say, "Out of sight, out of mind." They were forgotten, ignored or perhaps despised because they worked away from the practice of the Law. They were not present to their families. They could be perceived as thievish - dirtied. In the icon the shepherds are even at the literal edge of the painted board. Any further and they'd fall off. And this is where Mary gazes. Her eyes echo the invitation of the angels - come and see.

The ANAWIM today? Damaged soldiers back from war who feel forgotten and lost in the system, the people after Katrina and Sandy and the recent Philippine cyclone and Japan after the tsunami and the reactor meltdown. The ANAWIM are the un-insured, un-educated, those without a clinic or dentist, the families who live off of garbage mountains, the young people disappeared, the country of Syria - the layers of division so complex it can't be sorted out.

Or we could say that the ANAWIM is that inner place, in each of us, that feels estranged, lost, deeply confused or un-resolved, at the end of my rope, exhausted physically or emotionally.

We might return to this central piece of the icon - the Mother of God resting. She's not day-dreaming, "What have I gotten myself into here?" But she is looking for each of us and all of us. We might place ourselves and the hurting world in her line of vision. That's a good prayer.

3 comments:

You seem to have a soft spot for people on the fringes of society. I agree that we should be mindful of them and do what we can, but we should also look to help those within our own circles and families that may be in need; of love, of acceptance, of healing.

The circles of course start very "close to home". Then the circles widen. Heaven can't contain God. The earth can't contain God. Even the tabernacle doesn't contain God. Only a human heart. And that human heart is only able to contain God because it is ever expanding.

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Father Stephen was ordained a priest in 1979 for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York.
Before seminary he taught in New York City parochial schools. Following ordination he served as a parish priest and assumed chaplaincies to monastic sisters, a university hospital and a school-community for young people who had lost their life-direction. He currently resides at Christ of the Hills Retreat House in Pennsylvania. He has written and self-published "There is no problem..." a book of rosary meditations and The Way of the Cross, My Way of Life, a six week series of meditations on the traditional Stations of the Cross.